I wake up, look at the caller-id and see that it is my local Police Department.

I’m the father of two teenagers – both who have their licenses. Of course I immediately panicked.

“Sir, there is an officer at your front door that needs to speak to you”, said the dispatcher.

I quickly throw on some clothes and head to the front door, passing both the kids rooms on the way, checking to make sure they are here, and ok. They were.

And my dog was here. So what could the police want with me at 6:15 am?

I answer the door and a Police Officer is standing there, looking rather sheepish. He starts the conversation with, “Mr. La Gesse?”

After we made our introduction he declares, “I’m sorry – I’m an idiot. I stopped someone in front of your house and forgot to put my car in park.”

His car jumped the curb and ran over my mailbox. I told him that my mailbox had been hit before, and that it wasn’t a big deal. Waking me up and scaring the crap out of me IS a big deal!

The officer was very nice, and promised to replace the mailbox. I imagine his co-workers will razz the hell out him though!

The shots below are dark, I know – it starts to lighten up just as they get the car off the post. But you can see the tow truck lifting the cop car off the mailbox. The cop car ended up being ok – the mailbox not so much!

The last photo shows mailbox – the post was broken in half (click the image you can see the broken post).

The phone call scared the crap out of me, but it could have been much worse. I’ll take a banged up mailbox over a banged up kid or car any day!

Update: 9:23 am. Police officer comes back to pay for the damage. Nice guy. Policy demands that he take a drug test if he damages property – so that’s why it took him a few hours to come back.

This image is from three hours later – the cop came back and paid me for my mailbox. He said he would have done it sooner, but policy dictates that they have to get a drug test done anytime they damage property. He was a nice guy.